Caralynn Nowinski Collens is one of the prime movers behind the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute, a collaborative of academic and industry leaders that will focus on creating technologies for new and traditional manufacturing.
As executive director and chief executive officer of UI Labs, which aims to turn academic research into commercial products, Nowinski Collens will oversee the $320 million institute on Goose Island. The institute is being funded with federal and private dollars.
“UI Labs is about university-industry partnerships,” she told Blue Sky. “This means big and small companies working together, but also working with university talent and technologies.”
Before taking the helm at UI Labs, Nowinski Collens was associate vice president for innovation and economic development at the University of Illinois.
Nowinski Collens is a member of the Illinois Innovation Council and serves on the ChicagoNext Council on Innovation and Technology.
She spent her early career in venture capital and corporate finance, with a focus on technology-based university spinouts. She was a principal with early-stage venture capital firms ARCH Development Partners and Midwest Venture Partners and senior vice president of Sikich Investment Banking.
As a graduate student, she co-founded SanoGene Therapeutics, a biotech firm. She earned her medical degree at the University of Illinois.
Find her on social: @caralynn_chi Caralynn Nowinski Collens
Website: uilabs.org
Connected to: Steven Collens, CEO, Matter, husband
More on Caralynn Nowinski Collens
UI Labs to open DMDII branch in Rockford – Nov. 9, 2015
Growth spike at UI Labs brings fast set of leadership challenges – Nov. 3, 2015
The ones to watch in Chicago business, 2015 – Jan. 3, 2015
Buzzwords collide in ‘a new type of industrial revolution’ – Dec. 31, 2014
Broad industry support helped Chicago land Goose Island initiative – Dec. 22, 2014
UI Labs names its first board of directors – Oct. 22, 2014
How big data can create ‘incredible possibilities’ for cities – June 19, 2014
Partners start hashing out details of Chicago’s Digital Lab for Manufacturing – June 3, 2014
How UI Labs aims to link university, corporate and startup DNA – Dec. 12, 2013
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Caralynn Nowinski Collens leaves the podium after speaking at a press conference at 1871 addressing the announcement that Chicago will be the site of a digital manufacturing institute backed by $70 million in government funding and $250 million in private funding.
(Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune / Feb. 23, 2014)
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Caralynn Nowinski Collens speak following the press conference.
(Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune / Feb. 23, 2014)
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Speakers, from right to left, Steve Koch, Deputy Mayor Chicago, Caralynn Nowinski Collens, executive director of UI LABS, Andrew Mooney, commissioner for the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, and Jeff Malehorn, president and CEO of World Business Chicago, listen as William King, the chief technology officer at Digital Lab for Manufacturing speaks during an open forum to learn about the new Digital Lab for Manufacturing.
(Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune / April 23, 2014)
